PFAS and related chemicals are everywhere. Here are the potential health risks.

Stateside’s conversation with Courtney Carignan, an assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University.

MDEQ's investigative map near Rockford, MI.

Credit From Google map provided by Wolverine Worldwide

There has been a lot of coverage of PFAS in the news. That's shorthand for per- and polyfluorinated substances, and it’s a class of chemicals commonly found in stain proof, water-resistant, and nonstick products.

A lot of the news coverage mentions that the chemicals can be harmful to humans. But what exactly does that mean?

Courtney Carignan, an assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University, joined Stateside to help us answer that question.

Carignan discussed the chemicals' effect on the endocrine system and the different ways humans can get exposed to the chemical. She also discussed her own study that reported water supplies for millions of Americans exceeded the government’s lifetime health advisory for exposure to the chemical family.

Last fall Anthony Spaniola discovered a white foam had washed up on the shore of his family’s cottage on Van Etten Lake in Oscoda.

“It’s unusual and it’s kind of sticky, and it piles up and it’s a little bit sudsy looking,” says Spaniola. “It’s something that would probably attract a child… but it’s not something you’d want your child playing in.”

Spaniola knew exactly what that funny looking foam was.

“Maybe it wasn’t quite panic, but it was a feeling of dread,” he says.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is advising people to avoid swallowing the foam that appears on top of the water in the Rogue River near Rockford, Michigan.

The foam is highly contaminated with PFAS, an emerging group of chemicals linked to reproductive, developmental, liver, and kidney problems.

The agency says PFAS is not easily absorbed through the skin, so contact with the water is OK. But children who might accidentally ingest the foam should be kept from face contact with the water, or swimming.

The EPA held a national PFAS Summit in Washington on Tuesday to dive into issues surrounding the per-and-polyfluoroalkyl substances which have contaminated groundwater in sites across the country, including 31 known sites here in Michigan.

Michigan will spend $1.7 million to test water supplies around the state for certain kinds of industrial chemical contaminants. The chemicals are known as PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.